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This study utilizes ethnographic methods to inquire how ideas of masculinities are perceived by English-language media professionals and media audiences in Egypt. Using semi-structured interviews and a survey, the aim is to find common narratives on how masculinity is perceived on personal levels and what terms are used to describe men and masculinities, which in turn can be used as the basis for further analysisof Egyptian media content. The word “narrative” in itself is used toconvey personal experience, and the telling of those experiences, rather than generalizable data applicable to the larger population. Found are several common themes, such as emphasized heterosexuality, and the expectation of men as providers and protectors, which is related, by the respondents, to the nation and the military. Protection and militarism relates to ideas of strength, honor, and courage. Men are almostexclusively seen as possessors of power. The ‘head of the household,’ andthe head of state, both portrayed as iconized leaders, emerge as the quintessence of Egyptian masculine identity, whether that identity is contested or not.

The beginning of Arabic novels of the first half of the 20th century, including those belonging to the so called “realism” trend, are charatcerized by certain traits concerning, among other things, the way they insert the three elements : space, time, character into the text, the reality effect they create, and the presence of the narrator as an addressor. With the introduction of new writing techiniques after the 60's, these trends changed gradually. From, for example, introducing the the (space, time character) as a block and describing them in length , creating a realistic setting for the story , and having a discrete presence of the addressor, they have evolved into more diverse models where the three elements are spred ; the realistic impression loses its importance ; and the interpolations of the addressor into the text are more frequent. The present article aims, firstly, to present the major teatures of that evolution, and secondly, to show through a detailed analysis of the beginning of Thatrthara fawq al-Nil, 1966 by N. Mahfuz that this work, written in a pivotal moment of the history of the Arabic novel, includes already the beginnings of that evolution.

This article presents shortly the evolution of the concepts of Utopia and Dystopia in the Modern Arabic narrative literature. It focuses then on the Utopia/Dystopia related to the theme of immigration. The two short stories: Aknusu al-šams ʿan al-suṭūḥ (1994) by Ḥanān al-Šayḫ, and Bi-l-Ams Ḥalimtu Bika (1984) by Baha’ Tahir are chosen to underline several aspects of the Utopia/Dystopia of the immigrants life. Before leaving their homelands, they seem to have an Utopian image of the foreign country. After arriving there, this Utopian image disappears in the context of a negative reality: lonliness, racism, loss of landmarks.... At the same time, the Dystopia of the reality creates, itself, a new form of Utopia: the faraway homeland. Thus the process of immigration seems to start from the Utopian elsewhere and ends by the Utopian homeland.

This paper is an attempt to describe how two religious edicts by the current Egyptian grand mufti relate to an ongoing theological debate in the Muslim world on the nature of miracles and the state of mankind between life and death. The study illustrates how the mufti adheres to the Sunni theological school of Ash‘ariyya and in what way said school has emerged as a theological middle ground between the literal and interpretative schools of thought. The study also reveals how the Mufti as a guardian of the faith must operate within a secularising context and what strategies are possible for him to utilise if he is to meet the demands of a modernised society whilst retaining a coherent religious explanation. In his office as grand mufti, Ali Goma may well be described as a traditionalist where theological matters are considered even if the governmental institute of Dār al- iftā has been modernised under his supervision and now uses 24 hour phone lines, e-mail, facebook and has an official webpage and translates many of its edicts into other languages than Arabic. This means that Dār al-iftā and Ali Goma are communicating an official Islam not only to the Muslims of Egypt, but has transformed from a national institute to a player in the era of globalisation.

This paper describes how everyday muslims with no formal (or weak) affiliation to sufi brotherhoods in Upper Egypt practice and relate to sufism as a grand scheme or larger islamic tradition. The thesis highlights the importance of islamic sainthood in everyday religion, whereby the saintly dead are regarded as acting intermediaries between the divine and the worldly realms. Saints, holy people and blessed places are given agency through divine blessings, thus allowing villagers to partake in a larger islamic tradition through the mediation of– or cult connected to saints. This paper intends to demonstrate that an islamic concept of sanctity in muslim environments does not only exist historically, but is central to the contemporary religious landscape of Upper Egypt.

This thesis consists of literary case study of a classical Arabic travel narrativedictated by the Moroccan scholar and Ṣūfī Yūsuf ʾibn ʿĀbid al-Fāsī (يوسف بن عابد الفاسي) (d.1048/1638) in his new-found home in Hadramawt, Yemen. The study seeks to investigate the Ṣūfī dimension of the corpus text and address its legacy within the riḥla tradition (AR. الرحلة al-riḥla) by the usage of Ṣūfī elements, generic riḥla codes, and devices pertaining to narrative. The results that emerged from this three-folded theoretical approach seems to support the posed hypothesis regarding the peregrinative reminiscence of ʾIbn ʿĀbid being an early – if not one of the earliest admitted to at least this day – forerunner to the mystical branch of riḥla that would later flower in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and which the writings of the acclaimed Damascene scholar and Ṣūfī Shaykh ʿAbd al-Ġanī al-Nābulusī (عبد الغني النابلسي) (d. 1143/1731) are widely told to exemplify. Yet, the study also challenges the categorization of the riḥla genre, given the liberate and open nature of its format – resulting in a liable conventional standard, against which every riḥla ought to be measured, being almost impossible to produce. As an alternative, the study suggests that one rather should speak of developments or currents within the large body of literature called riḥla.

This volume consists of articles on imagery in the poetry of various literary canons. Focussing on figurative speech, the authors analyse poetry of the Near East, Greece, the Arabic world, early modern Spain, classical China and classical Japan. The articles present new research based on individual approaches for each particular canon within a wide span from socio-cultural environment to semantic and cognitive properties of specific images. They deal with the poetics of the other, the role of the poet, poetic persuasion in politics, traditional typologies of tropes, intertextuality, and the principle of analogy. The authors combine literary theory with specialised knowledge of the local context and literary tradition and provide innovative and dynamic close readings.

The research was conducted in Khartoum, Sudan, with the purpose to see whether there was an awareness on e-health among students in Khartoum and how they perceive health-related information on the Internet. As there is very little covered in this area, this research also aims to cover the gap in information and data of this field in this particular region, as e-health in Africa is an under-researched area in general. The general picture is that health information in Africa lacks coordination and that e-health system implementations are incapable of allocating crucial information on health for a continuity of care.[1]

Health care systems are shifting towards models that emphasizes self-care management andtwo major concerns in the general perception of online based health information are; The limitations in health-seekers’ own ability as well as the limitations/credibility of online information. With this in mind I conducted a qualitative method using focus groups. I did so due to the ability of creating a discussion with a wider range of perspectives, with a larger number of participants during one discussion, rather than one-to-one discussion/interview, and to identify collective thoughts or perspectives in order to see what might be treated/viewed upon as culturally.

The targeted groups consisted of students, mixed gender, in the age group of 17-25 in Khartoum.

This bachelor thesis is based on interviews with staff from three Egyptian NGOs in Cairo

during the spring of 2013. The study examines how three Egyptian NGOs discuss the

woman’s situation within the Islamic legal discourse in the contemporary Egypt. The empiric

material was analysed through a theoretical framework of gender in Islam, and a discussion of the concept of human rights laws in a local context.

The respondents emphasize the societies gender stereotypes as obstacles in the discussion

regarding women’s rights. A woman is first and foremost a mother and wife, according to the

local culture as well as the religion. The respondents are very critical towards the Muslim

Brotherhoods political agenda, and claim that “they”(the respondents repeatedly referred to

the MB as “they” in the empiric material) turn to interpretations of the religion to receive

legitimacy as religious role models. According to the respondents the woman

has legal rights but the implementation and interpretation of the Islamic law is problematic. Some of the respondents accuse the current political Islamic regime for deliberate neglect in the educational sector, and calls for a reform in the religious schooling system as well as

informing women of their legal rights.

This thesis also analyses the tension between western human rights laws and a local

community, where human rights discourse is associated with an imperialistic and colonial

This bachelor thesis is based on interviews with staff from three Egyptian NGOs in Cairo during the spring of 2013. The study examines how three Egyptian NGOs discuss the woman’s situation within the Islamic legal discourse in the contemporary Egypt. The empiric material was analysed through a theoretical framework of gender in Islam, and a discussion of the concept of human rights laws in a local context.

The respondents emphasize the societies gender stereotypes as obstacles in the discussion regarding women’s rights. A woman is first and foremost a mother and wife, according to the local culture as well as the religion. The respondents are very critical towards the Muslim Brotherhoods political agenda, and claim that “they”(the respondents repeatedly referred to the MB as “they” in the empiric material) turn to interpretations of the religion to receive legitimacy as religious role models. According to the respondents the woman has legal rights but the implementation and interpretation of the Islamic law is problematic. Some of the respondents accuse the current political Islamic regime for deliberate neglect in the educational sector, and calls for a reform in the religious schooling system as well as informing women of their legal rights.

This thesis also analyses the tension between western human rights laws and a local community, where human rights discourse is associated with an imperialistic and colonial power.

In the contemporary world, the celebration of difference and avowal of identity politics have come to be regarded as the hallmarks of a progressive, modern society. Yet, the once-clear definitions of “us” and “them” are being blurred in the confusing interface of national, cultural, linguistic, and religious traditions. Citizens in politically vulnerable societies are more and more aware of the increasing anxiety about the presence of the “Other”. And this is all the more true regarding societies that suffer from communal rivalries, and on top of it, have to grapple with problems of social and political organisation due to the presence of an increasing number of refugees on its soil. The alarming number of devastating conflicts and civil wars spins off problems that necessitate new learning and new solutions to new problems, compelling us to stretch the limits of our customary imagination and self-understanding.

The aim of the study is to examine the philosophical basis of our cultural ideals and beliefs. The central research question is wether people from diffrent cultures live in diffrenet worlds or not. The study ends up suggesting that regardless how different human cultures can be, this should however culminate in an unbridgeable separatism. A major synthesis is required here: the choice is not difference or similarity; rather, it is difference and similarity.

This book is the culmination of the Turabdin Project which goal is to monitor the development of Modern Literary Syriac essentially from the 1980s to the present. As a Scandinavian project, the majority of the data consists of literature written and published in Sweden. The approach is descriptive and contrastive relative to the Classical language, significant differences between Modern Literary Syriac and Classical Syriac are noted. The main focus is on neologisms and new developments in the lexicon.The present volume is subdivided into two parts. Part One, Context and Analysis, places the collected Modern Literary Syriac neologisms in their sociolinguistic context and presents an analysis of the most prominent features that characterise the data. Part Two, Glossary of Neologisms, consists of the list of neologisms collected, presenting the meaning of the entries, as deduced from their context, as well as proposed etymologies, their relationship to Classical Syriac, attestations in the sources, synonyms in Modern Literary Syriac when available in the data, and other relevant information. Finally, an Index of English Terms and Expressions is appended to the end of the book. Here the English translations of the neologisms discussed in the present volume are listed.

'Waqwaq' is something that is often attested in classical Arabic literature and that does not always refer to the same thing. In some cases it can be an island or even more than one. Sometimes it is a piece of land, sometimes a tree, sometimes a group of people and sometimes a bird. Waqwaq is for example found in medieval Arabic geographical texts that claims to describe the inhabited world and the end of it, which varied a lot.

Today we have a geographical end to the world we live in. We know how far we can travel and we more or less know what we are going to find. But how was it in the Arabic speaking world during the Middle Ages? Where was the end of the world located and what was to be found there?

This Magister's Thesis is about finding the characteristics for the Arabic geographical myth through waqwaq as a case study.

This Bachelor thesis deals with the sexual identity of Egyptian women who love and have relationships with other women. I theoretically study the state of existing literature on homosexuality in the Middle East, and I do this from a gender perspective. By looking closer at four recent books on this topic I derive two main, and contradictory, theories. The first is put forth by Joseph A Massad in his book Desiring Arabs, where he rejects the existence of homosexuality in the Middle East, declaring that same sex acts in this region don’t constitute identities, as in the West. The second theory, best represented in Samar Habib’s work Female homosexuality in the Middle East, sees past and present histories of same sex love as representations of homosexuality. The empirical basis for my analysis is five in-depth interviews with Egyptian women having sexual relationships with women. Examining my material I find a negation of Massad’s theory and a confirmation of Habib’s, the women indeed describe sexual identities. I look into these descriptions and see how the women have reached this point of realizing – or coming to terms. I also study their narratives of passing, as heterosexual women, in order to avoid repression. The women’s knowledge of society’s prejudice gives the explanation for their choices of passing, but at the same time the women’s stories show a will to challenge the view on lesbian women and resist the compulsory heterosexuality.

In the wake of the 25 January revolution and the coup that followed in 2013, Egyptian bookstores recorded a significant increase in demand for books by and about the Muslim Brotherhood. However, despite the burgeoning literature on the Brotherhood, knowledge about the movement is still rather limited, particularly with regard to its most strategic tool – media and communications.

This book offers a fresh and close look into the communication strategy of the group, focusing on published periodicals, biographies, and websites that represent the voice of the Brotherhood. The book analyses the core mission of the Brotherhood, namely its daᶜwa (call, invitation to faith) – how it is articulated and how it is defined by the movement as an ideology and a process. Have the media represented a coherent voice of the Brotherhood over the past decades? What can they communicate regarding the Brothers’ perception of the needs of their audiences? How have the media served to sustain, preserve, and distinguish the movement for nine decades? The book argues that the Brotherhood media speak with an intermittent voice and deliver an incoherent message whose tone is changeable and fluctuating and cannot be claimed to truly represent the heterogeneity of the group.

Adopting an interdisciplinary approach that integrates Media Studies and Social Movement Theory, the book provides a fresh analysis of the Brotherhood movement as an interpretive community and will be a valuable resource for anyone studying Egypt or the Muslim Brotherhood.

The article discusses three novels written by three Iraqi writers living in exile in Europe. It investigates how magic realism is used in these novels in order to challenge boundaries between different realms in life and thus also as a strategy to combat the exile's feeling of alienation.

The use of social media has experienced an extraordinary growth in Morocco, along with the introduction of Internet at the end of the 20th century. The booming of Internet users with the quick spreading of both devices and connectivity has created a new area of expression far different than the official discourse the Moroccan public was used to. The take-over of the online space in Morocco has shown new types of communication and protest that are completely in opposition with the official media discourse. Among the various social media tools that are used in Morocco today, YouTube is a one of the most popular, for both producing and watching content.

This thesis investigates the use of YouTube in Morocco, both in an official way and as a counter-power tool, mainly highlighting the emerging of oppositional popular cultural discourse and its diverse aspects.

This study aims to investigate the connection between concepts of masculinity and militarism in Egyptian online press. In order to avoid reification of stereotypical, orientalist constructions of Arab men as villains or oppressors, this study does not look at men in the typical sense, either as individuals or as a group, but as gendered subjects, socially constructed through performativity. Furthermore, this study is grounded in material derived from four months of ethnographic field studies in Cairo, exploring the understanding of masculinities by Egyptian media audiences and media professionals. The purpose of this study, as such, is to locate ‘militarised masculinity’ within Egyptian online press; to explore how militarism and notions of masculinity become entangled and what role the media plays in perpetuating this entanglement. Seeing how the military is an institution of state-sanctioned violence, combined with a rigid, normative representation of men and a shunning of ‘deviant masculinities’ in media, it is possible that a celebration of (ideal) masculinity as militaristic is related to issues of violence against women, and persecution of non-heterosexual men. In a time when media personalities are actively working with the police to ‘hunt’ gay men, and publicly expose those seen as deviating from ‘traditional’ or ‘hegemonic’ masculinity, it is today even more important to examine Egyptian media, in regards to minority and gender representation as well as hegemonic discourse.

Arabic is probably the largest non-native language in Sweden. Yet very little research is conducted on the language practices and attitudes among Arabic heritage speakers. The present paper explores, based on responses to a questionnaire, the practices and attitudes of 25 young second generation speakers of Arabic, born in Sweden yet whose parents were born in an Arabic speaking country. The picture that emerges is complex. With the exception of identity, where a large majority view Arabic as a positive factor, the picture is mixed. Arabic seems to have relatively little impact on the lives of the respondents, with no clearly positive or negative tendencies. One factor seems to be the exception, Arabic in Swedish schools is generally viewed negatively.

In the summer of 2013, millions of Egyptians returned to Tahrir square in Cairo to demand the resignation of the country’s first democratically elected president. This article examines the two key terms mainly used to describe the ousting of President Mohamed Morsy, ‘coup’ and ‘revolution’, and how these terms can be understood as arguments for two different interpretations of the event. Particular focus is given to the press corps of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, which reveals a discrepancy between the interpretation of Scandinavian online press and the Egyptian majority, meaning that the Scandinavian press corps is telling a story that is not recognized by those it is about. While many media producers speak of a severe polarization, it is found that the divide is actually small in number, but grows over time, raising questions about journalistic practice and media ethics. It is concluded that Scandinavian reporting on the Middle East needs to be seriously evaluated and reformed in order to improve its credibility.

This article examines the radicalization of politics in the 1990s leading up to the al-Aqsa intifada, also known as the Second Intifada. A study of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad Movement, Kach, and Kahane Chai reveals that the violence of these radical groups is not necessarily senseless rebellions against oppression but could instead be seen as calculated efforts to obstruct the peace process, suggesting that unsuccessful negotiations and a subsequent turn to violence are not failures of the peace process but are instead deliberate attempts to undermine it. Understanding the motivation behind acts of terror in Israel and Palestine today and its role in radicalization is crucial in countering terrorism and highlighting the road to peace.